ELSTREE 1976
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Documentary maker Jon Spira tracks down some minor actors who appeared in the original 'Star Wars' movie, from Darth Vader to tiny background roles. A genial study of fleeting fame and its aftermath, Spira's Kickstarter-funded documentary takes a lightweight but entertaining approach to a well-worn subject matter. Elstree 1976 is more of a bittersweet human interest story than a genre-focused fan boy magnet.
Bookended by extreme close-ups of Star Wars action figures, Elstree 1976 largely consists of straight talking-head interviews with its cast. Now in their sixties and seventies, mostly Brits and Canadians, all share broadly positive but uneventful memories of working on the first movie. Rather like the Millennium Falcon piggy-backing on an Imperial Battle Cruiser, due to make its U.S. debut on May 6th, Elstree 1976 is a tiny low-budget minnow of a movie surfing the huge slipstream that surrounds the Moby Dick of megabucks sci-fi franchises.
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